NO commercial demand in downtown

[CDB 3]

I searched the forums, but i wasn't able to find a topic with my problem: I have low commercial offices demand in my downtown district (i'm playing the whole region as a large metropolis), even if in the neighbouring cities the demand is very high. The district has all kind of connections, the large airport, good bus and subway network (actually, I've got a bus stop at every corner), good land value, a lot of parks, landmarks and all the reward buildings, excep for the ones with negative effects, of course.

Here are the stats of the district: it's a large map with 785.619 res, mostly $$ sims, 382.320 comm, with a lot of low wealth shops and some of skyscrapers, and 83.294 ind HT. The whole region stats: 2.180.368 res, 1.091.946 comm and 548.816 ind.

I've got SC4 + RH with the latest patch; all the mods I use (even the one that shouldn't be related with this problem): NAM, Underground Depth, Opera House fix and the industry quadrupler mod, no other mods and no chets (the industry Quadrupler is more a kind of realistic addition to Simcity 4, IMHO; those 20-jobs factories are ridicolous in a big industrial metropolis), only a lot of buildings from the Stex (I try to avoid bats with screwed stats, or I reset them myself); I plopped a couple of RCA buildings a lot of time ago, when i had super com$$$ demand, just to lower it a bit (I took care not to drop it to 0, of course).

 

Any suggestion? I don't want to cheat, so I prefer not to download the super demand mod (and I don't need more demand in the other districts, I'm already having troubles to fulfill it, with this downtown recession). I don't think I hit some kind of cap, In some previous regions I was able to have a lot more skyscrapers.

Myabe I should remove the Industry quadrupler? I fear that this will screw up the entire region, as I don't have room for new industries near the central districts; even with the NAM, i don't think that sims will travel to the suburbs to find jobs.

[ABCD12345 1]

hmmm to get some demand give the commercial district heavy traffic

[Bodom 1]

ok... traffic generates demand, u got to have an airport, low taxes, errrr... that exchange plaze(i dont know how its calleed)and a good *naberhood* city..
if u have all this things u got high demand

[simoplis_mayor 3]

the super demand modd isa radical and very unrealistic modd you can find it here well since you dont want that modd id suggest asking the help squad or placeing plazas more landmarks and such if all else fails download the super demand modd

[soldyne 111]

you might want to try adding more neighbor connections.  If you have 300k comm already then you probably have a lot of connections.  the problem though is that comm demand caps can only be raised with neighbor connections.  try to use lots of different types of transit to connect with.  the demand cap bonus for connections lessens if you use the same type over and over again.

 

example:  the first road connection to a neighbor gives you 10k commercial demand cap relief but three road connections only gives a total of 20k relief not 30k.  try connecting with subway, rail, road, avenue, highway and anything else you can get to connect.  the connection in the neighbor city does not need to go anywhere it just has to be an official connection.

 

there are very few rewards which affect commercial demand caps and plazas only affect desirability not demand.  plazas actually increase demand caps on residential not commercial.  the only rewards which affect demand caps for com are the convention center, university, and TV studio and then only for Co$$ and Co$$$.  Airports also affect demand caps but even a large international airport will only give you relief of about 90k.  also realize that airports only affect the city they are in and will have no effect on neighbor cities so you will need an airport in every city square that has a large commercial population.

 

if you want more realistic airports there is an airport pack on the STEX which has an airport tram.  the tram acts like a large international airport as far as demand goes but gives the illusion that your sims are using the tram to get to an airport which may be in another city.  it is mostly just eye candy but can give the working illusion of having a regional airport.

 

hope that helps.  let us know how it all turns out.

[CDB 3]

Thank you for all the answers!

Things are going a little bit better, I played the district for a couple of simyears. Some new high density res buildings developed, and i had to build another airport to lower the conjestion of the first one; both this things seemed to affect the commercial demand, that raised a little.

 

I've got the airport pack, thanks, the big international airport is under development in the southside , but I found on the official SC4 Exchange, someone modified the standard airports, making three lots with only the main terminal building: they look good, and they work as airports with the standard stats.

 

I post the maps of the city, the downtown district is the area inside the blue square: as you can see, i've got every possible connection; the two black circles  are the arports.

 

Road/railway:

 

Subway:

 

Plus, following your advice, I built the new branch of the yellow line (the vertical one in the east) and I connected the 4 and 12 to the north. I hope this will help.

I will post some news.

[pickled_pig 7]

As everyone else says, traffic=customers=demand.  Given you've upped your caps like soldyne mentioned:

 

To bring demand up and skyscrapers into your downtown, I'd plop a few big commercial office towers (NOT landmarks, as those have no jobs, but a good high-density commercal ploppable with 1000+ jobs - look on the STEX).  Also look at your traffic map (the map that shows # of cars/pedestrians... in varying shades of blue.)  The darker the blue is, the more suitable the road is for commercial development.

 

Also, sims that live near the borders of a city generally commute to the neighboring city, no matter how many jobs there are.  This has been my experience with my cities; I don't know what your commuters do.

Personally, I'd imagine some sort of enticement would bring jobs back... I've tried this in one of my cities and the customers query jumped from low to medium on neighboring buildings.

[CDB 3]

I will try this, thanks!

 

I have the functional landmarks, so almost every buildings I plopped actually have jobs.

 

The number of customers isn't a great problem, I've got a lot of people crossing the district, especially from the new quarters I'm developing to the north and east; I've only got some problem just south of the central station (in the map, the big rail yard in downtown), I'll plop some RCI building there.

But... won't this screw up all the district? I mean, I already have 0 or negative demand, adding new commercial jobs won't lower it more?

 

And, isn't strange that the neighbouring districts have positive commercial offices demand?

[soldyne 111]

very impressive looking region.  nice job.  I am glad our comments were helpful.

[CDB 3]

Thanks, Soldyne.

I was thinking about a CJ; maybe when i will solve the problems. First, I would like a functioning region.

[aminom 0]

You have lots of connections and traffic. Maybe it is something else?To me it seems that to get a lot of commercial demand you need to have lots of industry (especially high-tech) and very good education/health. This makes sense because industry supports commerce (you can't sell goods unless they are first made) and education and good health are needed for service/office as opposed to a factory job. All else failing, plop plazas in the undeveloped area.

[eedoon 0]

Tax rate?

[storms991 0]

good job reviving an old thread, the problem is demand cap, download Tapei Lite on the STEX